open carry activism

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Florida Carry Sues Miami Beach Police

March 28, 2019 by

Open carry is generally not legal in Florida. However, there are exceptions such as when one is fishing or hunting. Because of this, groups like Florida Carry organize “fishing trips” where their members legally open carry. The Miami Beach Police didn’t think much of this and disrupted, assaulted, and detained members of Florida Carry at one such event as shown in the video below.

As a result, the Miami Beach Police Department is now being sued by Florida Carry and the individuals illegally detained for violation of their civil rights under color of law.

From Florida Carry:

Miami Beach, FL – A lawsuit for deprivation of civil rights under color of law and violations of Florida firearms and fishing laws has been filed today against the City of Miami Beach and officers of its police department over an incident where the officers assaulted, battered, and detained law-abiding fishermen at a Florida Carry fishing meetup on the South Pointe Fishing Pier on June 24th 2018. The incident was captured on video.

Dubbed the “South Pointe Six”, six Florida Carry members and supporters were held by police for well over two hours without cause, while the police officers went on a fishing expedition of the own in an illegal attempt to find something… anything… the officers could use in order to charge the “South Pointe Six” with a crime before finally failing and releasing them.

Even after eventually releasing Florida Carry’s members, the Police Department forced the premature end of our First Amendment protected gathering by closing the public fishing pier until all known Florida Carry members and supporters left the area.

“Florida Carry will not allow our members to be abused, injured, held without cause, and have their civil rights violated without the strongest possible response to prevent these types of attacks on the good, law-abiding, citizens of our Great State.” Said Florida Carry Executive Director, Sean Caranna.

“Most police officers and deputies that we encounter are outstanding professionals who have an incredibly tough job to do, we respect that honor that. However, we’ve seen these types of abuses happen far too many times in cities and counties who do not respect the Right to Bear Arms. Every City and County in Florida should already know that proper training about the legal possession and carry of firearms is necessary. These types of abuses will not be tolerated – IT ENDS HERE.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Florida Carry General Counsel Eric Friday.

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Balanced Report On Open Carry In Texas….From NPR?

June 7, 2014 by 2 Comments

When the Complementary Spouse got home from work yesterday, she told she had just listened to a report on open carry in Texas that was rather balanced. The report was on NPR’s All Things Considered afternoon news show.

After I listened to it, I agreed. The report by John Burnett interviewed Cory Watkins of Open Carry Tarrant County, C.J. Grisham of OCT, Stephanie Lundy of Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors, and Alice Tripp of the Texas State Rifle Association.

Alice Tripp made the point that open carry of ARs and AKs in restaurants was not helping get open carry of handguns passed in the Texas legislature. She is quoted as saying, “It’s not helpful. It’s not good manners. It’s not thoughtful. It’s not conducive to facilitating the legislative process.”

The report was balanced enough to note that both Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Wendy Davis were in support of allowing Texans to open carry handguns. Coming from NPR, who woulda thunk it?

You can listen to the whole report at this link. I had tried to embed it but it just wouldn’t work.

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Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right

June 4, 2014 by 7 Comments



The rest of that song by Stealers Wheel goes “here I am stuck in the middle with you.”

That is how I’m feeling about the whole open carry fiasco in Texas. I doubt that there are many readers of this blog that don’t support the extension of open carry in Texas to include handguns. Many states including my own North Carolina have unlicensed open carry.

What is incredibly frustrating is watching Shannon Watts and her fellow gun prohibitionists at Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors making hay out of the bumbling ineptitude of groups like Open Carry Texas. Sonic, Chipotle, and god knows who’s next have issued “Starbucks-style” statement asking the open carry activists to leave them out of the argument.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has done yeoman’s work in examining the folly of their actions. You can read some of those posts here, here, and here. There are more.

The attention whoring of these OC activists has caused such backlash that the NRA issued a statement last Thursday which said, in part,

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms.

Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here). In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that’s counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it’s just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That’s not the Texas way. And that’s certainly not the NRA way.

Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA backed away from that statement yesterday saying it was the personal opinion of some unnamed staffer and not the NRA’s official position. He apologized for any confusion it caused. Others such as Charles Cooke of National Review disagreed saying that it was what needed to be said. I think I and the majority of the gun blogging and gun podcast community would agree that it needed to said.

Bob Owens had an interesting observation on this at BearingArms.com. He noted that often in cases like this where a statement is retracted that it is the original statement which reflects the internal thinking of the organization. In other words, it was what we called back in my political science days “signalling“.


As Michael Bane emphasized today in his Downrange Radio podcast, our goal in the gun rights community needs to be winning. We no more win hearts and minds with these open carry demonstrations in restaurants than the US Air Force did with carpet bombing in South Vietnam. I would send a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to everyone in the Texas open carry leadership if I could.

I can’t, so in the meantime I will implore them to cut out the narcissistic displays, clean up their websites and Facebook pages, and, as Michael suggested, think before you do stupid. Those of us stuck in the middle would appreciate it.

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While I’m On The Subject Of Open Carry

May 23, 2014 by 7 Comments

Rachel, my fellow co-host of The Polite Society Podcast and a gun rights activist in Texas, sent me this link about an agreement on a unified protocol and general policy regarding open carry events put out by a number of open carry groups. As Rachel notes, this is huge given the behind the scenes disagreements among the groups on the best way to push the Texas Legislature to approve open carry of handguns.

The joint release from Texas Carry, Gun Rights Across America, Ellis County Open Carry and Open Carry Texas announcing their unified policy:


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Come and Take It Texas, Texas Carry, Gun Rights Across America and Open Carry Texas Joint Statement on OC of Long Arms – May 21, 2014


Over the past year, our members have done what no other organization has been able to do – put open carry at the forefront of the fight to restore gun rights for all Texans. As we have grown, we have had to adjust our efforts based on lessons learned through hundreds of open carry events, big and small.


Looking back, it has become clear that there is one area in which we have gotten the most resistance and suffered the largest setbacks: open carry of long arms into private businesses. This is not a new phenomenon. Early on, because of our efforts, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) sent a message to all TABC licensees warning them about allowing our members to open carry into their businesses. This resulted in places like Smashburger asking us to leave our guns at home. Since then, Starbucks, Wendy’s, Jack In The Box, Applebees and most recently, Chipotle have come out asking we not carry our firearms into their establishments.


Whereas, our mission is to get open carry of handguns passed in Texas, we must once again adjust in a way that shines a positive light on our efforts, our members, and our respective organizations. We are humbly and emphatically imploring our members to cease taking long arms into corporate businesses unless invited. Black Powder revolvers have proven to be very effective and align with our goal of legalizing open carry with a handgun. We do understand that not everyone will be able to afford one, but if you can, we are requesting you do so. Almost every leader has gone to Black powder for a reason. It works.


For all further open carry walks with long guns, we are adopting the following unified protocol and general policy to best ensure meeting our respective legislative mission to legalize open carry:

1) Always notify local law enforcement prior to the walk, especially the day of.
2) Carry Flags and signs during your walk to increase awareness.
3) Carry the long gun on a sling, not held.
4) Do not go into corporate businesses without prior permission, preferably not at all.
5) If asked to leave, do so quietly and do not make it a problem.
6) Do not post pics publicly if you do get permission and are able to OC in a cooperate business.
7) Do not go into businesses with TABC signs posted with a long gun (Ever).
8) If at all possible, keep to local small businesses that are 2A friendly.

We ask that members take a step back and make an objective assessment of what we are trying to accomplish and help us to get open carry passed for everyone. We must be willing and able to recognize what works and what doesn’t, but we need your help to make these efforts a success. It will be very difficult to spin holstered, black powder revolvers into a negative story. This is the goal we are currently striving for, open carry of handguns. We know everyone is working hard for this cause. It is simply time to focus on what has been proven to work. The conversation has shifted from open carry of handguns to rifles in businesses, negating our efforts and distracting us from our mission.


We are winning. Because we are winning, we have come under increased scrutiny by media and politicians. Let’s use that spotlight and make the most positive impact we can!


Carry on!


CJ Grisham, Open Carry Texas 

Terry Holcomb, Sr, Texas Carry 

Murdoch Pizgotti, CATI-TX 

Eric Reed, GRAA

Eric Reed of Gun Rights Across America points out some very valid points that are being ignored by the mainstream media and groups like Everytown would have you not know.

Now under Texas state law, a holder of a concealed handgun license is only required to abide by certain signs that have very specific legal verbiage. Up to this point, none of the above aforementioned businesses have posted these legal signs. So it remains legal for a concealed handgun licensee to concealed carry into these establishments with a valid Texas CHL.

The anti-gun groups have won nothing but a public statement by these businesses to make them just go away. As stated in the press release, gun rights is winning. The fight is in Austin, not at Jack in the Box or Chipotle.

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Hey Shannon, This Is Old News

May 22, 2014 by 2 Comments

Shannon Watts would have you believe that Smashburger is going to be the next place they lobby to ban “open carry” thanks to open carry activists. That is, if you believe the tweets she sent out this afternoon.

The only problem is that this is old news. Smashburger has had a policy in compliance with Texas ABC Board regulations that open carry of any sort is banned. They did this in 2013. Prior to the clarification in ABC Board regulations, Smashburger was welcoming to open carriers.

The picture below is from GlockTalk in March of this year.

Take a good look at that second picture she tweeted. It is the same one from this July 2, 2013 blog post in Open Carry Texas. 

Next time Shannon tweets about a picture featuring open carry activists, take a good look. It probably is an old picture she is using to drum up business for Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors.